Winter's Wrath
by ProudDyspraxicWriter
Summary: Marty goes to give Verne a Christmas present, but he's in for a shock. Warning: random ending that doesn't make much sense.
1. Winter's Wrath

Winter's Wrath

**Tuesday, 23****rd**** December, 1980**

Marty McFly rolled down the street on his skateboard, pushing it along with his foot to make it go faster. In his hands he held a wrapped box that was to be his friend Verne's Christmas present. Since that chance meeting in July, the budding teenager and frail elderly man had become very close, despite Verne's severe case of autism, which already made it hard to build up relationships. So for their first Christmas as friends, Marty wanted to do something special. He'd saved almost every milk carton to make a miniature time machine, which was the subject of Verne's obsession. He hoped he'd like it; it had taken him weeks to make and Linda had almost thrown it away by accident. As Marty crept closer to the nursing home where his friend lived, he imagined what his reaction would be like when he opens the box and sees the model inside. Verne's happy face would make his day. Finally, when he reached the home's entrance, he picked up the skateboard and went inside. When he first arrived, the home frightened him. But now, it didn't bother him at all.

" Hi, Annabelle," he said to the receptionist behind the desk.

The woman looked up with an alarmed and somewhat sympathetic expression on her face. " Marty," she murmured. " Verne…"

" Yeah, where is he? I have a Christmas present I'd like to give him," he replied.

" Marty…" Annabelle whispered again. " Verne died this morning."

" Died?" the boy repeated, astonished. " How could he have died? He was fine last week."

" He was very old, Marty, you must remember that. He'd just turned ninety two."

" Yeah, I know, I was there!" he snapped. He was angry though he couldn't understand why. He felt sick to his stomach and he wanted to scream out and cry, but there was something stopping him, like a wall in his heart.

" He wasn't going to live forever you know," the woman said in a soft but straightforward tone of voice. After a pause, she could see the boy's pain, so she went on to say, " He didn't have anyone in his life, except you. No family, no friends. I know you made a difference. When you weren't around, he was chattering away about you like something crazy. He never said it, but I know he adored you."

Marty shrugged and angrily kicked the ground. Miserably, he hung his head and turned on his heels out of the door. In a matter of moments, the winter had arrived. Sleet and snow was starting to fall down from the darkened grey sky. The boy looked up to the Heavens, sheltering his face from the ice, and he released a blood-curdling shriek of pain. Mounting his skateboard, he made his descent home, literally choking on his tears. Ten minutes later, he reached the McFly household, where the family was preparing for the arrival of George's sister and her family. He burst through the door which caught attention of his mother.

" Oh, Marty, you're back! How did it go? Did that old man like his present?" she asked him. To her surprise, her son erupted into tears, slid down the door and buried his face in his knees. " Oh, sweetheart! What happened?" She rushed to give him a comforting hug, which he rejected. With empathy, she watched him run up to his bedroom, undoubtedly to sulk.


	2. Hurts Like Hell

**Wednesday, 24****th**** December, 1980**

" Oh, sweetie. I wish you'd snap out of this mood. It's Christmas tomorrow," Lorraine cooed as the miserable twelve year old boy sat at the breakfast table.

" Well, son, I know what it's like to lose someone close to you," George said, passing his son a bowl and the box of Cocopops. " I tell ya, it hurts like hell but you'll get over it. So cheer up, huh? You've got your cousins coming over later. You don't want to be moping around while everybody else is having a good time, do ya?"

Marty shrugged his shoulders, pouring the cereal into his bowl. " Pass the milk, please," he grumbled.

" You know, honey, your friend wouldn't want you to act like this over him," Lorraine continued.

" Then what would he want?" muttered Marty sarcastically.

" Well, he'd want you to be happy and think of him often; remember all the good times you spent with him," his mother answered.

" What a load of bull…" He jumped off his chair, grabbed his bowl and slunk off to his bedroom to sulk some more.

" Marty, come back here! I know you're hurt right now, but there's no need for such language!"

" Go away!" he called from up the stairs.


	3. Family Reunion

" Hi, Kathy! How was the journey?" cried George, giving his older sister a kiss on the cheek.

" Fine, it's chilly out there, though!" she replied, shivering as she removed her coat.

" Let me take that for you," Lorraine offered.

" Hi there, Richard. How's it at the office nowadays?"

" Not too bad, actually."

" Oh, hey, kids!"

Kathy and Richard's three children filed in. Jonathan, the eldest who was a mere year younger than Dave, waved at his Aunt Lorraine and Uncle George, as did fifteen year old Sally Anne and twelve year old Marnie. When they saw two of their cousins sitting at the bottom of the stairs, they erupted with excitement, except for Marnie who couldn't see Marty anywhere.

" We're getting a VHS for Christmas. Aren't we, Sal?" Jonathan sneered. " What are you getting? A shiny new bike?"

" No! We're getting Nintendo's Game & Watch," Dave lied. A conversation like this was not unusual. They were constantly trying to outdo one another.

" No, we're not," Linda butted in. " Mom said video games melt your brain."

Marnie heaved a sigh. She never caught up in those silly arguments; neither did Marty, which was probably the reason why they got along so well. " Hey, sorry to butt in, but where's Marty?"

" Up in his room listening to Stairway to Heaven over and over again," Linda replied, rolling her eyes.

" Why's he doing that?" Marnie asked her worriedly.

" He had this friend who was like a million years old and he died yesterday," Dave explained.

The sympathy for her cousin sliced through her heart. " Can I see him?"

Linda shrugged and Dave said, " Sure. I'm not stopping ya."

The young teenage girl, who was ultimately small in all departments for her age, bolted up the stairs, feeling the pain of Marty's grief. Sure enough, when she opened the door that had a 'Musician in Training' sign on it, she was greeted by the depressing song performed by Led Zeppelin. Marty was curled up in a foetal position at the foot of his bed, his brilliant azure eyes puffy and red from weeping and his guitar clamped to his chest as he plucked a few meaningless chords. Marnie smiled to herself, covering her empathy with something else but she didn't know what. She knelt down beside him and realising her presence, Marty looked at her.

" Hi, Marty," she whispered as he stood up to switch off his cassette player. " Uh, I heard about your friend. I'm sorry, OK?"

" Thanks," he muttered, his voice croaky from crying all night.

There was a short pause that Marnie tried to fill with a question. " What was he like?"

The young boy sighed and with almost happiness, he responded, " He was…different. He had a disability but he was so intelligent! You asked him a question and he had the correct answer within seconds. It was like he knew everything. Plus, he was into time-travel, like I am. When I first met him, he told me that one day I'm going to go back in time and that was how we became friends. But now, that's all over."

Marnie gave her friend and family member a comforting pat on the shoulder, despite the fact that she didn't believe the part when he mentioned time-travel. " He seemed like a really nice guy."

" Actually, he was rather rude. But that was because of his disability. People like him can be rude sometimes, though they don't mean it. That's just the way their brain works. But we were like best buddies or something."

The girl subtly nodded her head, not fully understanding how someone could be rude and not mean it. Her gaze fell upon the untouched box that lay on the chest of drawers. " Hey, what's that?" she cried and went to take a better look.

" That's Verne's Christmas present. Or it was supposed to be," he answered, mumbling and shuffling his feet.

" Oh," his cousin whispered. " What is it? In the box, I mean."

" Verne loved everything about time-travel and time machines. He watched shows about it, read books on it; talked about it _constantly_. And apparently, he had one back when he was a kid in the 1890's, though I never believed him. So I made a miniature time machine out of milk cartons. It's pretty awesome though he never got to see it."

" Well, I guess he would've loved it. I bet he would've kept it on his windowsill and daydream all day long," Marnie said cheerfully, making Marty smile.

" Yeah, I bet he would have," he agreed.

" So whaddya say we go outside and make-believe we have our own time machine?" she suggested.

The two twelve year olds, despite being too old for imaginative play, rushed out to the back garden and pretended to go back in time to meet the bloodthirsty Tyrannosaurus Rex and to the future to see the wonders of the world that are yet to be discovered.


	4. Not Alone

**Thursday, 6****th ****September, 1984**

Marty had grown up and grown out of childish games like the ones he used to play with his cousins. If anything, he was slightly embarrassed by it all. Instead, the majority of his toys had been thrown out or donated to charity, and in their place took his drum set and guitar. He was starting to become very serious about his dream of being a famous rock star. He rarely thought about time-travel nowadays and had almost completely forgotten about Verne. So, that day, he and his friends were racing down the road on their skateboards. A few days earlier, he'd found a flyer advertising for an assistance job over at crazy old Doctor Brown's place. He'd heard a lot of insane stories about the strange goings-on in that neck of the woods. He thought it would be pretty interesting to work for a guy like that. He went up to the scientist's door, rapped it on hard and he answered several seconds later.

Jeez. Look at that haircut. " Uh, yeah. I'm here for your assistance job," he said.

The old guy grinned. " Finally! I've been waiting for weeks for a suitable candidate! And since you're the only one, you fit the bill. Now, what might your name be, young man?" There was something strangely familiar about him. Marty swore he'd seen those large and wild chocolate eyes somewhere before, in someone else.

" Uh, Marty McFly," he answered.

" Short for Martin, I suppose? Good. I'm not a big fan of that name either. Well, I'm Dr. Emmett Brown."

" I know who you are!" the teenager blurted out and Brown raised his eyebrows in slight surprise. " I don't know though, have we met before?" he asked.

The old man frowned in thought. " I don't believe so. Why do you ask?"

" I don't know. You kinda remind me of someone but I can't remember who."

Later that night, as Marty tried to sleep, he racked his brain, trying to figure out why his new employer seemed so familiar. Clocks, there were a tonne of clocks in Doctor Brown's garage. A bookcase with science books in it. Then it all fell into place. Arising from his bed, Marty slunk over to his closet and switched on the light. Madly rummaging through his old junk, he hoped no one had thrown it out. Finally, he found what he was looking for. It had collected dust over the years it'd been stored away and it was starting to fall apart, but it was still recognisable as a cardboard time machine. He chuckled and smiled to himself. He could still vaguely remember gluing pieces together and getting in a mess.

" Looks like you weren't alone, Verne. You had a living relative all along."


	5. The Circle of Life and Time

" What? That's insane! I never had a relative called Verne," Doctor Brown cried, when Marty had told him about it at work next afternoon.

" I'm telling ya, Brown. You got the same last name and everything. You even kinda look like him," Marty insisted.

" Both my uncles were dead and buried by 1955 and my mom didn't have any siblings. She was an only child, just like me," the old scientist replied. " I did _not _have any living relatives in 1980. I'm the last Brown left. It must be someone else. Brown is a very common name, you know. Now let's stop talking about it and get on with our work."

Marty nodded, slightly hurt. " He was a pretty cool dude, though. I built him a model time machine, but I never got the chance to give it to him."

" Time machine?" he repeated. A sudden rush of excitement washed over him and he gently brushed his right eye with his hand, remembering the night of his vision, wondering if his stupid hunk of metal would eventually work.

" Yeah. Actually, I found it in the back of my closet last night. Kinda made me sad," Marty admitted. " I only knew him for the last few months of his life but I really liked him. He died a couple of days before Christmas Day, you know," he added, his eyes growing wide with sadness.

" Remember this, kid. Winter's wrath is truly a murderer. Though in the springtime, happiness is restored and babies are born. Well, what I'm trying to say is that life goes on. People live, people die. It's OK to grieve but that's always the way it's gonna be. One day I'll die, one day you'll die…" For a moment, Doctor Brown zoned out, the sadness slapping him in the face. He'd lost so many people. His father, his mother, his aunt, his uncles.

" All we are is dust in the wind, right, Doc?" the boy replied, remembering a song he'd once liked.

" Yeah," Brown muttered softly. " Come on, then, little guy. Let's finish this automatic dog washer!"

" Ya think Verne's looking over me?"

" Yeah. Sure. Why not? Maybe someday I'd be able to fulfil his dream of inventing time-travel, huh?"

Eventually, Doc Brown's prediction came true a year later when he revealed the finished DeLorean to Marty. The first time the boy saw that miraculous machine, all the memories from 1980 came flooding back to him. He knew that, despite the fact that he would not exist for a while yet, Verne was shining bright and proud in Heaven, looking over his young friend. Winter's wrath may be a murderer but with a time machine, lives can be relived over and over with no end. Therefore Marty would see the old man again, but in the form of a small child – the son of the scientist who brought him his obsession in the first place.


End file.
